Ah the glory days. The afternoons and evenings gone by, growing up on anime of yore. Ranma 1/2 is by far one of my favorite animes of all time. I am a huge fan of rom coms anyways. I mean love, laughter, you just can't go wrong that combination. So here is a very biased review of Ranma 1/2.
We open on a young girl fighting a panda in the streets of Japan. The girl is arguing with the panda during the spar as if the two are very close. Ultimately the panda defeats the girl and hauls her off to an unknown location. Then we are introduced to the Tendo household. A father with three daughters, Kasumi, Nabiki, and Akane. He announces his good friend Genma Saotome is bringing his son Ranma, to whom one of the girls will be betrothed. Then our panda and girl show up. The girl introduces herself as Ranma Saotome. These are words of relief to the daughters, as now none of them would have to be in an arranged marriage because of course they can't marry a girl. During the evening bath, Ranma goes in on her own. The next scene shows a male, obviously Ranma, still in the tub. Akane announces she is going to enter the bathroom, and the now male Ranma is caught with Akane walking in on him. Hilarity ensues and poor Ranma now has a lot of explaining to do.
Ranma and his father Genma, now reverted to human from panda, explain that they have been studying martial arts in China. They happened upon Jusenkyo, the training ground of cursed springs, where every spring has a tragic story to it. During their training they fell into the spings. Ranma into the spring of drowned girl and his father that of drowned panda. And now when splashed with cold water they are cursed to transform into their springs' matching namesake. When in hot water they revert to their original selves.
If this doesn't seem funny enough, Akane, the youngest daughter, is a skilled martial artist with little interest in boys. It's immediately decided against her and Ranma's wishes that THEY should be the ones to be married. After all, Akane doesn't like boys, and Ranma is half girl. This starts a very hot/cold relationship between the two.
The series progresses in a very episodic fashion. Ranma accumulates more fiances, never intentionally, and always accidentally. Ranma and Akane of course can't help but have a budding romance as they are forced into ridiculous encounters and situations. And so the series progresses for a gazillion manga and anime episodes. The two are so similar - the anime and manga, that you could take your pick and enjoy either.
Rumiko Takahashi is known for her characters, no matter how shallow or complex, giving them interesting angles and outlets. She practically invented the tsundere and few are more subtly complex then Ranma.
In fact, it's here where I'm going to comment on cultural significance of the series. And I daresay it has cross Pacific resonance. Ranma is a world class martial artist, dedicated to his craft by practicing each and every morning and seeking challenge after challenge to test his mettle. Honorable and having a desire to protect those that can't protect themselves, Ranma is also unmistakably a teenage boy. Around the other female characters he is hopelessly lost and sticks his foot in his mouth as if its natural place was protruding from his chin for easier access. His arrogance and brashness is only amplified as he uncomfortably fumbles around Akane. In short he is a fairly straightforward young man we'd find in many stories, anime or otherwise.
When he becomes a girl, he becomes far more... vitriol? Watch the show closely. Rarely does he talk smack when in boy form. As the series progresses, in spite of his protestations, he uses his girl form to get away with more and more actions that no boy would ever do - including flirting for free food. Only some of his "girlish" behaviors leach over to boy type Ranma and Akane is happy to point it out for the viewers pleasure. So there is a clear attempt at pointing out "girl" and "boy" stereotypes. Several episodes play on what should be the 90's role of a woman in proper Japanese society. These include episodes from comparing hip sizes to cooking competitions. Truly its not too different then archaic and persistent western ideals. Always with a martial arts twist and always with Ranma's half girlness being dragged along.
There are other differences the show points out. Ranma never fights a "real" fight in his girl form. Girl type just is not strong or fast enough, he rationalizes. And he never attacks a girl while in boy form, though there are several formidable female martial artists as the series progresses. None of this bothered me - it seemed right, until recently. You see I like my women to be strong and beside their men, never behind.
And that lastly brings me to Akane. She starts as the tsundere strong female match for Ranma. Sadly she degenerates into a love interest/trophy and often gets cast as the damsel in distress rather than Ranma's equal. To me this just makes her... less.
At the end of the day, it wasn't Rumiko Takahashi's purpose to comment on the differences between male, female, and gender roles - as far as I'm aware at least. She was writing an entertaining work of comedy spiced with fun martial arts zaniness. I think its the assumed that tells us most about our cultures, whether on that island of the pacific or here in the states. And strangley enough the assumed works so well here that Ranma is indeed a very entertaining piece with surprise and fun to be had.
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